Louisiana Part II

Playing in the Gulf of Mexico

There is something I just love about Louisiana.   It has a strange kind of beauty to it - not the kind of beauty that you experience in the Mountains or at the Ocean, but a kind of mysterious beauty.  The trees, the vegetation, the birds...it all seems to come together in this peaceful, serene place.  We moved from the New Orleans area to the western part of the state, almost as far west as you can get, to a place called Sulphur.  It scared me a little bit, heading to a place with such an unusual name, but the place we stayed was great, again, accented by the wonderful people we met.  This part of Louisiana thrives on the oil industry and that was clearly evident as soon as we arrived.  There were oil refineries everywhere.  At first they bothered me, but the longer we were there the more I came to appreciate them.  They are massive and at night they light up like the skyline of a great city.  It also humbled me to look at the size of them and to see all of the people that work so hard there day in and day out, and realize, if it weren't for them, we wouldn't be able to be living this lifestyle of travelling the country.  That thought gave me a whole new appreciation for what I was looking at.

"Bonnie & Clyde"

We took a long drive up north to do the high point of Louisiana.  While the elevation wasn't that high, it is on private land, so we had to hike to the top, rather than drive.  It was actually quite a nice hike and it felt good to be a little bit above sea level.  Just a short drive from there, we also went to the spot where Bonnie & Clyde were shot down.  It's just off of a busy road - but it was strange to stand there and close our eyes for a minute and realize what that day must have been like for all of the people involved  Sometimes, in a place like that, where something major has happened, you can almost still feel it in the air. 


Geocaching and hiking the State trails brought us to a couple of different, interesting places.  There is a strange curiosity that we have to see something we've never seen before - like an alligator in it's natural habitat.  It's funny how your mind can change quickly tho.  When we were on the state run trails with boardwalks and lots of people around, we just kept looking, hoping we would see one.  Then when we were geocaching and "off trail" a bit, it suddenly became as much of a desire not to see one.  I've never been a huge bird watcher, but my Dad was, and I now have a different appreciation for it.  The birds are all over the place, and different from any we have seen.  I think we have all seen large migrations of certain birds at one time or another.  We were in one park, where I swear they were performing just for us.  It was like an amazing dance, watching them weave in and out, changing their formation, breaking into smaller groups and then joining back up again.  You have to wonder what makes them move like they do, or do they have a choreographer designing the dance for them?


Another very interesting thing we find is, even though it has been several years, many people of Louisiana are still deeply effected by Hurricane Katrina, and, in the area that we were, Hurricane Rita.  When you talk to local people, the subject almost inevitably turns to stories of what people went through.  It was sad to ride and see concrete pads that have just been abandoned, but where you knew someone's home once stood.  We were in a village that was completely wiped out, but was now completely rebuilt with new homes, on higher, stronger stilts. Disasters like that stay with people for a lifetime.  It's an interesting thing to see how much the weather effects the whole country, but in different ways.  In New York, it is common to see winter salt storage facilities and large DPW garages for snow plows.  In the middle of the country it was storm shelters and tornado sirens.  Down in the South, it's all about the hurricanes - so many buildings on stilts, and evacuation routes everywhere - we learned all kinds of new words like "evaculane" (the shoulder of the road built wide enough to make another lane in an emergency) and Contraflow signs on the highway (where both sides of the highway merge so they can use all lanes for people to get out and none to get in).  I guess with the winter we are having, we are constantly reminded that no matter how much we plan, Mother Nature will do her own thing and there is nothing we can do to change it.  That was also evidenced by our ice covered motorcycle.


On this leg of the journey, we experienced one of our favorite days that we have had yet.  The Cameron County Fur and Wildlife Festival.  We try to make it a point in each place that we go to find something that is truly "native" to the area.  What could be more native to southern Louisiana than the Fur and Wildlife Festival?  We knew there would be a parade, some muskrat skinning, shooting competitions and best of all, local Cajun music.  We found the shooting competition right away and stood there for the longest time watching every age group and every skill level shooting clays out of the sky.  It was very interesting to be walking around the festival seeing everyone carrying their guns with them for the competition...not something you would see in NY state.  As we were watching, a woman came up and asked us a question about the competition and we got into a conversation, sharing our story of our "wandering life".  Her boyfriend came over, we shared some stories and they invited us to sit with them to watch the parade.  And from there the day became amazing. 
They treated us like royalty, introducing us to everyone they knew, and sharing stories and traditions about the parade and people in it (For instance, at a Mardi Gras parade - you never pick up beads from the ground...if someone hasn't caught them - then leave them be)  As one of the floats went by we saw the "Queen of Cameron County" and realized she was our new found friend's daughter.  It sounds silly, but in the excitement of everything, we felt like we knew her all of our life.  When the parade was over, the Queen, along with the queen from every other festival in the area (including the shrimp queen,  the rice queen and the crawfish queen) came over, had their pictures taken with us and asked us all kinds of questions about our travels.  All extremely poised, well spoken and polite.  We were also introduced to a couple of the local "legends" with their alligator necklaces, missing fingers and incredible stories.  We met the Mayor, who, as the day went on would stop and check on us and make sure we were enjoying ourselves.  As we get older, we have less and less patience for big crowds and don't find it necessary to seek out major, commercialized events.  It's the small towns, with their gracious people, behind the scene stories and local flavor that we love.  This will go down in the books as one of the best.